


The Gift

by SaxSpieler



Series: Verǫld Vǫrðr [7]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Hell, Implied Threat, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, heavily implied sexual/non-con undertones, misleading threats, physical entrapment, this is pure HELL, traumatic memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 19:48:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12778212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaxSpieler/pseuds/SaxSpieler
Summary: Sliske delivers a gift.





	The Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Fate of the Gods. Sliske gives Finley the ability to see into the Shadow Realm. It's not a fun time for Finley. At all.

“I do wonder why I’m hearing of Zaros’ return from you, specifically.”

Wahisietel was halfway through a bottle of gin, yet his voice was stone-steady, frigid.

“Wha-?” Finley choked on her own nip of gin, shrinking back into her chair slightly at the sound of his voice. “Azzanadra didn’t tell you anything?”

His already creased brow furrowed, the jade-green gems in his forehead glinting in the lamplight.

“No, he did not.”

“It’s been almost a bloody _week!”_ she nearly shrieked in disbelief. “I thought you’d be the first to know after the fact!”

“As did I,” he muttered, unusually quiet. 

Finley balked. She could practically smell it, the anger that brewed beneath his relatively calm exterior. It worried her, scared her even, the thought of Ali - Wahisietel - losing his temper.

_The calmest-looking waters hide the most treacherous currents,_ she thought to herself, wrapping both hands around her glass in an attempt to stall the tremors that threatened to send the drink falling to the floor.

“Right, well. Maybe you should go talk to him about it,” she offered haltingly, raising the glass to her lips again.

A low, rattling rumble answered her, shaking through the floor, the chair, and her bones.

Her arms drew in close to her sides, and she braced herself for…

...for _something._

She didn’t know.

And somehow, that made it worse.

Yet, all that came was a resigned sigh.

“Fine. Yes. I should.”

Releasing the breath she’d been holding, she looked up at Wahisietel. He stood facing away from her, regarding the wall next to the front door, one hand bracing himself against it. After a moment, he turned back around, face ironed out once again. 

The anger was still there, though.

She knew it.

“I’ll be back once I’ve sorted this all out,” he said, a teleport spell tessellating into existence around him. You’ll be fine here?” 

Finishing her gin, she nodded perhaps a bit too enthusiastically.

“Aye.”

***

She _wasn’t_ fine.

Finley sat on Wahisietel’s bed, knees hugged tightly to her chest, watching the door with an unblinking stare. He had been gone for mere minutes, but it felt like hours.

Dread - terror, even - buzzed between her ears, and she shivered, mulling over where she had been and what she had done.

_The World Gate._

_Freneskae._ A dead world in nearly every sense of the word. 

_Azzanadra,_ untrusting, wary, then jubilant, placated, almost sedated.

_Sliske,_ smirking, scheming, then snarling.

_Zaros._

What was there that she could say about the mind-invading event horizon of a god for whom she had traversed a volcanic hellscape, fended off packs of hissing, winged creatures, and faced the living nightmares of an elder god to build a new body?

She dug another clump of compacted ash from beneath a fingernail and winced as she bumped one of the many now bandaged burns on her arms.

_Shouldn’t have done that._

_Shouldn’t have let yourself be used like that._

_Should’ve just walked away._

_Should’ve-_

She froze, gaze locking on the door opposite of her.

The lamplight was dim, the shadows cast by furniture and her own form deep.

Yet, the shadows on the door were deeper. They writhed and slithered, growing like strangling vines until they reached the ceiling and spread with an almost inaudible hiss.

Those shadows were familiar, and she tasted copper on her tongue as their master materialized, almost melted, out of the darkness.

Scrambling off the bed, she took up a defensive stance, cursing herself for leaving her weapon on the other side of the house.

“What do you want, Sliske?”

“You ask me that each time we meet,” he chuckled, his light footsteps nearly dancing across the floor. He almost seemed to glide, as if he wasn’t completely _there._ “Can't a pair of good friends share a conversation once in awhile without an ulterior motive?”

Finley ground her teeth, squinting.

“You _always_ have an ulterior motive.”

Sliske threw back his head and let out a laugh.

A hollow, mirthless ghost of a laugh.

“Truer words were never spoken, _my dear.”_

His voice was like frigid acid, the shadows deepening in response to Sliske’s...what was it? Anger? Frustration? Rage barely concealed by an amicable mask? 

Whatever it was urged Finley to run, to get away from this yellow-eyed predator that now stared her down, a stiff slash of a smile stretched across his face. 

A quick glance around, however, confirmed that there was nowhere to run - Sliske stood, weedy yet imposing, between her and the door. Both windows, too. Not two steps forward, and he would have her thoroughly cornered.

Her heart pounded in her ears, yet she stood her ground, hoping, praying, that she could hold her own against the Sliske that had threatened her just outside the World Gate not a week ago.

_‘All bets are off.’_

She ran over her options.

Sliske was taller - nearly two heads taller than herself. Heavier, too, no doubt. But, he was spindly, more joint and sinew than muscle from the looks of him. Perhaps, in a physical fight, she could take him.

However, if he decided to use magic, she was well and truly at a disadvantage. Paltry fire magic against the might of the shadows - there was no contest. Outmaneuvering him was out of the question as well, not with this much shadow enveloping him. He would be able to blink back and forth faster than she could run.

Though, there was one option she did have, aside from staying and attempting to defend herself. It hung on a chain around her neck, its metal backing resting against her chest. Her hand closing around it would be enough to activate its magic.

_Better now than never!_

Without a word to Sliske, her hand shot to the amulet, slamming against the crystal with enough force to hurt, and she jumped forward, expecting to be swept away to Nardah’s town square, where she could, maybe, cast another, lengthier teleport to somewhere else.

Sand swirled.

She lifted off the ground.

And then, her face met the floor, the amulet clattering beside her uselessly.

Pain followed soon after, her nose mangled and bleeding, and she cried out.

“Did you really think,” Sliske hissed from above, roughly tugging the amulet from her neck and hurling it into a corner, “that I came here to play a game of cat and mouse?!?” He hauled her to her feet and spun her around, pinning her face-first against the wall. Her arms latched painfully behind her and her nose leaking blood, she screamed, struggled. Kicked and thrashed with all her might, but to no avail. 

He simply twisted her arms and pinned her tighter.

She could feel his chest at her back, his breath ghosting down her neck.

“No,” he continued, leaning down even further until he spoke directly into her ear. “No, you won’t be running from me, dear Finley. Not this time.”

Her screams turned to wails, desperation and utter panic taking over.

“HELP! HELP, _PLEASE!”_

She tasted blood on her tongue.

“HELP!”

Blood on her tongue.

“ALI!”

Blood on her hands.

“A-”

On the sheets.

On-

_On Athrhan’s hands._

_“W-WAHISIETEL, HELP!!!”_

There was a pause, a snarl, and she was airborne again.

Her back met another wall, skull cracking against the stone as she fell.

She felt hands - cold, clammy, and clawed hands - snake around her, pulling her upright and binding her in place. Two around her neck, the nails on one reaching up to dig into her cheeks. Too many to count encircled her arms and legs, thankfully still. One tangled furiously in her hair, yanking her head back. 

Blinking hard and coughing, she spasmed, but the shadows held fast.

Sliske mantled over her like some silk-draped vulture.

“Look around you, _‘World Guardian!’”_ he bellowed, eyes now practically burned with yellow fire, though the face housing them was deathly stoic. “My dear brother can’t hear you - no one can.”

The world shimmered around them both, an otherworldly veil shrouding everything in sight.

_The Shadow Realm._

_Of course._

“Now,” Sliske began, leaning in closer. _Too close._ “I have something to give you. A _gift,_ of sorts. I hope you’ll enjoy it - I put a lot of thought into it, after all.”

Almost gently, he grasped her chin, his other hand raised, familiar dark magic crackling around his fingertips.

“You have such lovely eyes,” he purred softly. “I hope you don’t mind if I _enhance_ them a bit.”

With that, his hand shot forward, fingers coming to a rest on the spot between her eyes, and a burst of magic lanced through her skull.

It crackled and roared in her ears.

Burning.

_Searing._

And then, it was over. 

She didn’t even realize she had been screaming.

Voice spent and head spinning horribly, she whimpered, slumping to the floor as the shadows, and Sliske, finally released her.

“You thought you were going to die, weren’t you?” Sliske asked, kneeling next to her limp form and brushing the hair from her face. “Oh _no,_ you thought I was going to collect you, I’m guessing.”

She couldn’t answer, couldn’t do anything - her limbs wouldn’t respond, as if every nerve in her body had been fried by that foul magic.

He chuckled, now stroking her hair.

“My dear, I can assure you-” he suddenly seized a fistful of her hair and yanked her head around so that she was facing him again. “I don’t need to collect you anymore.”

Leaning in one final time, he placed a light kiss to her forehead, and she felt her stomach roll at the touch.

“You’re already _mine.”_

With a dry snap, Sliske was gone.

The comparatively warm air of the material realm flooded back into her lungs. She gasped and heaved, the sudden change shocking and sickening.

It was a while before her breathing calmed and her strength returned. She carefully pushed herself back upright with a groan, falling back down to her knees as the room spun and her stomach lurched again.

Swallowing bile, she settled for laying back down and waiting for the nausea to subside. 

Silence was her only company, and she welcomed it for the time being.

Sliske was gone.

She was still alive.

Yet, something was still _wrong._

Even with her vision blurred by the remnants of panicked tears, she thought she could still see the undulating veil of the Shadow Realm, thought she could still see the shadows themselves slink around of their own accord. 

She slammed her eyes shut, hugging her arms around her and riding out the last bits of nausea with a shudder.

_It’s just your imagination. He’s gone. He’s gone, and he didn’t do...he didn’t do anything to you. Calm down._

Not wanting Wahisietel to come home to her sprawled, bloody form on the floor, she finally snapped her nose back into place and managed to crawl over to his box of medical supplies, rifling through it with trembling hands.


End file.
